The Darkness Within
by AmethystMoon
Summary: It's a new version of the old DW...paragraphed and with chappie two added...no, erm, rudeness yet...but just to be safe, I rated it...for language mostly!


The Darkness Within (Working title - might change!) Author: ~*AmethystMoon*~  
  
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling and neither do I own any of her characters or dudey© creatures.Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy (though I wish I did! *^_^*) etc.though I do own Laeriel, so ask me if you want her, because if you didn't it would be mean and illegal and it's just petty theft really! Lol! Oh yeah, and this isn't my first Draco/OFC fic, but it's the only one I've posted.reviews are welcome.but nothing about Laeriel's Mary-Sueness because she has one hell of a twist..  
  
Little summary type thingy: When a new girl arrives mysteriously at Hogwarts, Draco can't take his eyes off her, but how will he make her feel the same? A/N: Laeriel sounds like a bit of a Mary-Sue to start with, I know, but she has one hell of a twist in her tail, believe me!  
  
***Chapter One*** Musings  
  
The golden light poured into the Transfiguration classroom, casting dancing and flittering shadows over the desks. Draco stared aimlessly at the page in his Transfiguration textbook, not showing any interest in his work. Professor McGonagall's voice cut through his empty mind.  
  
"Mr Malfoy. You will be working with Laeriel for this lesson. Move please."  
  
Draco didn't move. Laeriel. That mysterious, raven-haired beauty who had only been at Hogwarts since the start of this term.  
  
"Quickly please, Mr Malfoy" snapped McGonagall. Draco scrambled up, hastily and clumsily, knocking his open textbook to the grey flagstones with a clatter. A few people sniggered. Draco ignored them, and made his way to Laeriel's desk. She looked up, a cold, angry glint in her intensely blue eyes. "What did I do to get stuck with you, Draco?" Laeriel hissed.  
  
"Draco, is it?" he replied, with a slight sneer to his voice. "That's your name isn't it? Unless you have a partial preference to 'Arrogant twat' that is" she muttered. Draco reddened.  
  
"Now, I want you all to Transfigure this flower into a racoon. We have worked on this type of Transfiguration before. All you need to do is remember the spell and the correct wrist and hand movement. Accuracy is the key to this spell's success. We don't want any.accidents" McGonagall said, looking pointedly at Neville, who blushed a particularly spectacular shade of scarlet, causing the rest of the class to snigger. Soon, the classroom was a cacophony of voices reciting the spell, and exclaiming in frustration when their racoon disappeared. The words used in the classroom would give the passer-by the impression that there was a particularly ratty group of Jarveys sitting in the room. A gasp, then a laugh, rippled around the room as Neville managed to blow his racoon to smithereens. "Here, Neville, let me help you," said Hermione kindly. "I've already Transfigured mine!". She proceeded to show Neville the correct hand movement, and the class gradually settled.  
  
"Bloody Granger!" hissed Draco. "Why does she have to be so damn good at everything? Filthy, goddamn Mudblood!"  
  
"If I didn't know you, I would put that down to jealousy," remarked Laeriel casually. Draco reddened and scowled.  
  
"Oh, don't do that!" exclaimed Laeriel, "you'll kill the racoon more spectacularly that Neville ever could!"  
  
Damn her. She could be such a bitch. Draco scowled again. Laeriel shook her head so that her black hair glinted in the early evening light, and focused on the instructions. She gradually disappeared into her own world, shutting herself off from the class and from Draco.  
  
"Laeriel, will you get back to earth and show me how to do this damn thing please?" It was Draco, his voice ripping through Laeriel's head, destroying the half-formed thoughts that were fluttering in her head.  
  
"It's perfectly simple. Just twirl your wrist and flick your wand, and when you flick your wand say 'Transendio'. It isn't too difficult. Unless you can't cope without a slave doing everything for you, of course" she couldn't resist snapping. Draco scowled yet again. In fact, he had been sporting a permanent frown for the whole duration of the lesson so far.  
  
Draco couldn't work out what everyone had against him. After all, he hadn't actually done anything terrible. Calling a few people a few names and having a few fights didn't really constitute killing anyone, though he had given Hermione beaver teeth and turned Neville into a blue frog and attempted to squash him last year. But it wasn't what he said to people, what he did to them, why he did it to them, or even how he did it that caused people to hate him. It was just his family and the reputation attached to the name. The fact that his father was a Death Eater and blatant adulterer, the fact that his mother was nothing more than a pretty little airhead with nothing inside her except the cocks of several different men.  
  
Nobody liked the Malfoys. Even those who were Death Eaters and had been friends with either Lucius or Narcissa wanted nothing to do with them. Draco didn't understand any of this, or refused to see that his family was one of the most messed up, dysfunctional ones this side of Pluto. In fact, he was the only one not to see the way his life was going. Even Laeriel could see that he wasn't going anywhere. Draco had spent many a miserable, sleepless night trying to place himself on a path to success, and seeing only power. Power over everyone. This mentality had lured him into the trap of thinking he could make anyone do anything he wanted. He wanted Laeriel to like him, so he would make her. He was used to getting his own way. He looked at Laeriel in deep contemplation, wondering how he could make her like him without doing anything illegal or potentially fatal.  
  
"Why the hell are you staring at me like that?" snapped Laeriel, suspicion in her voice. Draco reddened, as much as his moon-pale skin would let him.  
  
"I-I-I like your necklace thing, that's all" he stammered. Laeriel looked very strangely at him, but didn't speak. Draco turned away to hide the hot flush of humiliation creeping up the back of his neck, flooding his pale skin.  
  
"What a fucking stupid thing to say," he muttered under his breath, "'I like your necklace thing'? What kind of goddamn crap excuse was that?"  
  
"You may leave, class dismissed," came McGonagall's sharp voice, "You did excellently today, by the way, Miss Granger. Fifteen points for Gryffindor." Hermione flushed happily, smiling. Ron grinned at her and the Gryffindors left the room.  
  
"Damn Mudblood never tires of being top of every damn class, does she?" Draco muttered under his breath. Then he noticed Laeriel, packing up her bag nearby. He looked over at her, ready to repeat what he had just said, but she was oddly silent.  
  
"Shouldn't you be going too? You're a Gryffindor, shouldn't you be celebrating those extra fifteen points that will give you more chance of beating us, again?"  
  
"No," said Laeriel, quietly, simply. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the classroom, her heels clicking on the hard floor. Draco watched her out of sight.  
  
"No?" he repeated, confused. He stared out into the shadowy, deserted corridor, flickering lights cast by the fading winter sun, in disbelief and puzzlement. "No?"  
  
To be continued.  
  
A/N: Well, dudes, what do you think? A short crap chapter to set the scene but it's gonna get better.and soon you'll see what I mean about Laeriel.  
  
R & R please!  
  
~*AmethystMoon*~  
  
  
  
***Chapter Two*** Outcast  
  
Laeriel continued on through the winding corridors and staircases of the school. She was the odd one out, the Gryffindor outcast. She didn't have an obsession with Harry, and she didn't care how many points Gryffindor got towards the house cup. She didn't celebrate at every chance she got, and she didn't hate Professor Snape. She was just different. A rebel. No way was she going to follow the crowd and do what they did, and she wouldn't fit in anyway. Not with the secret. *** Draco stood in the same place as he had when Laeriel had left the classroom, still in a state of utter disbelief. What was up with the girl? A Gryffindor that didn't need to celebrate the likelihood of them winning the House Cup again, as they had since precious Potter had arrived. There was something distinctly weird about her too. Her dark hair and pale skin, blue eyes, perfect complexion. No normal girl could ever look like that. Not even those who, like Fleur Delacour last year, had the power to hold any male spellbound, were like Laeriel. Nobody had ever, in Draco's vast experience of the opposite sex, been so mysterious and beautiful at the same time. In truth, Draco was a little scared of her.  
  
As Draco walked down the corridor to his common room, someone emerged from the shadows of what seemed to be a door, where no door was. Draco jumped a little. Looking uneasily round, he caught sight of a dark figure walking down the corridor. Even in the half-light of the dungeons he could make out the figure, dark haired and pale. But what was she doing down here? Draco could have sworn that she had gone up, not down, from Transfiguration. Back to her common room.  
  
"God, she had better not be having secret liaisons with Snape in there!" Draco muttered. He started as he heard a voice from a person he couldn't see. It was almost as if the voice was inside his head.  
  
"No," Laeriel's voice echoed inside his head, reminiscent of the way she had spoken after Transfiguration, low and mystical. With a jolt, Draco realised that someone was looking at him, behind him. He caught a flash of sapphire eyes as Laeriel turned, and walked off, up the staircase, out of the dungeons.  
  
Draco shook as he gave the Slytherin password ("Razalas") and entered the common room.  
  
"You OK? You look dodgy," said Crabbe, as Draco approached them.  
  
"Thanks Crabbe," Draco said sarcastically, "The voice of eternal sympathy and intelligence." "Well, thanks!" Crabbe answered.  
  
"For God's sake!" Draco snapped irritably, "How stupid are you?" With that, he stormed upstairs and shut himself in the dormitory.  
  
Draco tried to forget about Laeriel, to block her out of his mind. He couldn't like her. She was way too weird for him. Suddenly, he heard that unnerving voice in the back of his mind again.  
  
"Face up to your feelings, Draco. You never know where it might get you." He shook his head in an attempt to rid it of the echoes that chased each other in his mind, running round madly, like a puppy chasing its tail.  
  
Upstairs, in the Gryffindor common room, a dark figure turned, hair billowing behind it, and disappeared silently up a dark and deeply shadowed staircase.  
  
TBC...  
  
  
  
A/N: I know, another short chapter. I'm no good at long chapters, but R+R please! I'll update as soon as possible, but I'm in the middle of my GCSE mocks right now, so I'm having to write this in little snippets in ten minute breaks between revising!! Oh yeah, and for whoever it was who asked me to paragraph it (sorry hun, can't remember your name!) I've done so, and each piece of speech starts a new paragraph, 'cause it's a lot easier to read! Thanks for reading (and reviewing - hint hint!)  
  
~*AmethystMoon*~ 


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